Our Reading Intent

“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”

Malala Yousafzai

At Evercreech C of E Primary School, we foster a love of reading to ensure our children become fluent, confident readers. We promote reading for pleasure and endeavour to expose children to a wide variety of authors and genres to broaden their literary horizons and expand their vocabulary and imaginations. High-quality texts are carefully chosen for their links to curriculum learning opportunities, ensuring a representative balance of both classic and modern literature and gender representation (amongst both authors and characters). We also seek to expose children to worlds beyond their immediate experience, reflecting social, cultural, ecological and environmental diversity, to support their development as global citizens.  

Reading is taught in line with objectives set out in the Programmes of Study from the new English Curriculum 2014. Reading is a high priority both in and out of school and we value parental support to develop our children’s learning potential through regular home reading.   

Class Reads

Storytime is a core element of our timetable to ensure that this important time is protected and happens on a daily basis. Class teachers select an appropriate high-quality book to be read aloud to their class over the course of the half term. Books are selected to ensure there is breadth and variety of texts both across the year and between classes. Books are chosen to be ambitious for the children so as to expose them to language and themes that they may not yet be able to access in their independent reading. This is part of building the firm foundations for reading for pleasure. 

Opportunities to Read

All our children read daily and have access to a home reading book. For our younger children who are learning phonics, these are fully decodable books that are closely matched to their phonic attainment to develop their reading confidence and fluency. For children who are secure in their phonic knowledge, we have a range of books organised into stages, supported by well-chosen, high-quality texts in classrooms. Each child has a Reading Record book on which their reading is recorded while relevant comments, creating a useful dialogue between school and home. 

All children in EYFS and KS1 are heard read individually by the class teacher once a week and by the class LSA once a week. In KS2, all children are heard by an adult at least once a week. In addition to this, children identified as priority readers receive daily reading practice with an adult to support and accelerate their progress towards closing their gaps and achieving age-related expectations.

We invite parents to join in with our celebration of reading through Rock Up and Read events. Last term, Year One pupils welcomed a member of their family into the classroom and enjoyed a session of reading for pleasure with their (or a friend's!) familiar adult.

  

  

 

Reading Rewards

Regular reading is celebrated and rewarded through our 'Reading is a Treasure' certificates, which are handed out during our weekly Praise Collective Worship. Certificates begin to be issued once a child has achieved ten reads, and are awarded at regular intervals until the pinnacle of Amethyst is achieved which reflects 300+ reads!

 

         

 

Reading Challenges

As part of our commitment to raising the profile of reading and promoting a love of books, we set themed challenges at regular intervals to encourage enjoyment and variety in reading. 

Here is our most recent reading challenge and some photos of children taking part!

                                 

                                

                                 

Reading Progression of Skills and Knowledge